Tommie Alice Steele

Tommie A. Steele, 81, died Friday, May 26, 2006, at a Fort Worth hospital. Memorial service: 3 p.m. Tuesday at Lake Country Church, 7050 Lake Country Drive. Tamiko Abe was born March 31, 1925, in Tokyo, Japan. Tommie met her husband, Zack H. Steele, while he was serving in the U.S. Army in Japan. They were married in 1952 and had a son, Charles, in Sendai, Japan. Their next assignment took them to Fort Jackson, S.C., where they had a daughter, Julia. The Army sent them to assignments in Alaska, California, Germany and back to Fort Ord, Calif., where Zack Steele retired. Zack and Tommie owned two restaurants in Seaside and Marina, Calif., in the '70s and early '80s. Tommie was also a licensed real estate agent in California as well as an artist. She moved to Fort Worth in 1990 and continued her painting. She was a longtime member of an artist co-op in the Fort Worth Stockyards and always enjoyed new friends made in painting classes. She was a member of the Fort Worth Japanese Society. Tommie was an outstanding cook, gardener, artist and all-around creative person. She was preceded in death by her husband, Zack H. Steele, in 1983. Survivors: Daughter, Julia Dunaway and husband, Steve; son, Charles Steele and wife, Shannon; grandchildren, Helen Olin and husband, Andy, Glenn Clancy and wife, Jessica, John David Stokes and Alexandra Stokes; great-grandchildren, Grace Olin and Kyndal Trent-Stokes; sister, Yosuko Kato.